I got an email last week from a canyon resident recounting a story they experienced recently at their home:

On Friday morning 12-3-2010 about 11AM a green jeep pulled up in the cul-de-sac on our block of Delcourt.  Two men got out and walked up the middle of the street in front of our house and walked into our open garage.  My daughter just happened to be standing in the kitchen to witness this and threw open the kitchen window and yelled for the men to "get the hell out of our garage".  The men took off running toward the intersection of Hollister and Edwards.  Upon seeing this, the green jeep parked on Delcourt "peeled" out, quickly stopped in the intersection to pick up the two men and fled.  Our daughter called 911 and alerted the police.  They responded immediately to our house and searched the canyon, but the men were long gone.  The police reported that there have been a number of residential burglaries reported in Glenoaks Canyon and that they have increased their patrol in recent weeks and will increase it even more with this incident.

About 1 month ago, the house across the street from us was burglarized.  It was on the market to be sold and the burglars cut the lockbox off the front door and removed the keys and let themselves into the house.

Let this be a reminder to us all that even though we all feel very safe in our canyon, there are people that come in to our canyon that do things to disrupt our comfort and safety. Please keep an eye out for this kind of activity and call the police if you see anything of concern.

[UPDATE] I spoke with Glendale Police Officer Sue Shine earlier this week and wanted to clarify some facts. According to police reports, the burglary mentioned above in the empty house was actually a false alarm. Police responded to the alarm but found no forced entry and nothing out of place. Officer Shine also wanted me to relay that while it is important that we always be vigilant, crime is very light in our canyon compared to other areas of Glendale.

As you can see at crimemapping.com, our canyon is a very safe sanctuary. Our police officers frequently patrol our canyon and help keep it that way. If you want to be alerted via email about crimes in our area, you can sign up at the crimemapping website to receive email alerts.